Van Helsing

[Harp]

In the end, this movie was something as imagined by a couple of 9 year olds, sitting around planning the ultimate monster movie. It may sound cool until you realize the writing ability of the average 9 yr old. "Hey, let's have Frankenstein's Monster swing on a rope for, like, a mile!" "Yeah, and we can have Van Helsing fire his grappling hook from the castle to the mountains 1,000 feet away! That'll be so cool!"

That's almost exactly the imagery I use when describing this film to folks, a couple of hyperactive 9-year-olds. "And then and then the wolfman jumps on dracula and they crash down a hundred feet and then and then anna swings from one side of the castle to the other and catches the syringe in mid-swing yeah yeah and then all the little baby vampires explode yeah and then..." ad nauseum. Of course, that imagery first occurred to me after watching LXG, which seems to be a common point of comparison for Van Helsing.

 

[Elemental]

I mean, imagine if my players said, "Okay, so we'll take the Monster out of Romania in a stagecoach. And we'll send a SECOND stagecoach as a decoy ahead of the other."

I'd say, "Okay. So first the vampire chicks catch up with the rearward stagecoach, that has the actual monster and no Van Helsing in it, and they (roll, roll) kill everyone. What do you do next?"

I viewed it more that they were playing a game that allows players some control over the plot (such as Adventure! or Buffy) and the players spent some plot / drama points to retroactively have there be a second coach when the first went into the chasm.